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HAIG, NIVELLE, and THIRD YPRES by Frank E. Vandiver"

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HAIG, NIVELLE, and THIRD YPRES by Frank E. Vandiver HAIG, NIVELLE, AND THIRD YPRES by Frank E. Vandiver" In a battle that raged from June to November, 1917, British troops under Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig advanced against German positions in Flanders. With the capture of the village of Passchendaele, the vaunted Third Battle of Ypres ended. Gains were balanced against Allied losses of nearly half a million men,' but the British commander considered his campaign a success. He had dented the powerful Hindenburg Line, had thinned German ranks by some 270,000 men, and had exhausted many of Germany's best divisions-all of which certainly constituted success. According to the relative definition of "success" in vogue on the Western Front in 1917, Haig might have been right. But if experience counted, his measure of success was challenged by an overriding question: Should he have launched Third Ypres at all? A recent biographer, John Terraine in Ordeal of Victory (1963), considers the campaign vital and suggests that it reflects Haig's study of the war. Did he study the war? Did it teach him anything?" Experience should be the constant tutor of generals. War in France and Belgium was rich in experience, most of it new and hectic. Cone were "the good old days" of Empire Wars. The uncomplicated tactics Haig had seen at Omdurman, in the South African campaigns, in India's myriad combats, had given way to the digging, dredging, and engineering that made the Western Front the epitome of modern warfare. First attempts at maneuver and open war had come to grief on the Marne; the "race to the sea" ended mass movements for inexplicable reasons. Divisions of horse had been hereded to France for the day of the expected "breakthrough"-but the day never came. All of which bewildered such traditional cavalry officers as Haig. War was now a siege spread across almost four hundred miles of Europe. Sieges were studied by all officers; staff colleges and military academies offered courses in the mechanics of entrenchment, the intricacies of regular "Mr. Vandiver is Harris Masterson, Jr., Professor of Hlstory and Provost of Rice University. 77 78 RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES approaches as expounded by Vauban; in theory, all trained commanders knew how to reduce Acre, Troy, perhaps even Carcassonne. But the siege lingering from the Channel Ports to Switzerland was different. Few fortified towns were handy; instead, the lines ran along open ground and were often several systems deep. Such old defensive reliables as Greek fire and hot oil had given way to labyrinthine trenches festooned with great sweeps of barbed wire. So the nature of things had changed. How could the enemy's lines be broken so completely that the waiting cavalry might at last have room to range behind the battle, cut communications, spread terror, and disrupt logistical support to the front? Answers were sought with remarkable dedication by Allied and Central Powers generals. Answers were offered at the Marne, at Verdun, the Somme. The most pointed answer was offered in April, 1917, along the Aisne, when the offensive ordered by French General Robert George Nivelle failed. What happened to Nivelle, Haig knew with special clarity-he had been a party to the Frenchman's plan.3 Did he apply any of the lessons taught by Nivelle's experience when he plotted Third Ypres? Almost from the moment Haig took command of the British Expedi- tionary Force, he cast covetous eyes toward the strip of Belgian coastline in enemy hands. In January, 1916, he talked with Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, commanding the Channel Fleet, and was impressed by the need to free Ostend and Zeebrugge. Loss of the channel coast would deny German submarines splendid operating locations,' The more Haig thought about the Belgian front, the more fetching it became. What if British forces landed behind the German lines? Not only might the ports be freed, but the whole German right flank might be rolled back. With any luck, the war might be pushed to a finish by the BEF. Even General Joseph Joffre, the stolid French commander, saw the virtues of channel operations and seems to have offered tentative support to a British campaign aimed at clearing Belgium.' But German attacks at Verdun disrupted Haig's and Joffre's hopesGVerdun became the test of France's endurance. Endless divisions were consumed in that cauldron of attrition. Pressure mounted steadily until, at last, Joffre was forced to plan a diver- sionary offensive. He looked to Haig's army for help. The British joined in the Somme campaign-a long series of battles that wasted French and British soldiers in frightful numbers and achieved some slight relief of Verdun. Be it said for Haig and Joffre that losses damped their ardor not a bit. Out of the continual grinding came a kind of faith in grinding-process became an end in itself. And there was always a haunting possibility in the background: relaxed pressure might give the Germans victory. By the end of 1916, Allied strategy in France and Belgium was affected by two major considerations: 1) the tottering state of Russia, and 2) British HAIG, NIVELLE, AND THIRD YPRES 79 successes in Mesopotamia. If Russia collapsed (which seemed likely), fresh German divisions could speed westward and shift the balance of strength on the Western Front. This shift could be made more decisive if the "easterners" among Allied planners persuaded London and Paris that the war might be won more economically in the Middle East. Cynical as it may sound, Haig and Joffre needed to commit their govern- ments to the Western Front by entangling them in another lengthy offensive. At an Allied conference in November, 1916, Joffre proposed a bald policy of "wearing down" the enemy during the coming year. He concluded that Allied numerical superiority should be used while it lasted, and urged a general push along the whole battlefr~nt.~But these plans were victims of a French government crisis in December which resulted in Joffre's repIacement by General Nivelle. Nivelle's quick rise from obscurity seemed justified by his spectacularly successful counterattacks at Verdun. He claimed no magical powers, only that he had a "new plan" for quick victory. This plan, based on extensive artillery preparation and an "army of maneuver" in reserve, would at last produce the cherished "breakthrough" and win the war. The French gov- ernment greeted his promises of speed with glee and accepted his proposed battle. First, though, he had to convince the British.' Nivelle had panache, a jaunty, Gallic poise, dressed well, wore a very French moustache, looked roguish and daring, and spoke English like a native. To London he journeyed and presented his plan to the War Cabinet in mid-January, 1917. He charmed everyone. His proposal might have been depressing-it sounded as though he wanted to resume the Somme battle on tougher ground along the Chemin des Dames ridge-but he was per- suasive, talked of smashing German defenses and of rushing through the gap to cut off retreat. It would all be done in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, or Nivelle would stop the fight. This proposed attack along the Aisne depended on a preliminary British assault at Arras to draw in enemy reserves; once the British attracted the Germans, a massive French drive would start, supported by the army of maneuver's twenty-seven divisions. When the front broke, these twenty-seven divisions would exploit the opportunity.' Intense artillery preparation would obliterate or cripple op- posing trenches and troops before the French infantry charged-success was certain! Beguiled by the vision of quick victory, the British Cabinet rushed to agree.1° So desperately did Britain's leaders desire success in haste that Lloyd George, recently elevated to the post of Prime Minister, suggested putting Haig's army under Nivelle's command." Swift complaint from Haig and General Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, halted this outrage, but Haig did accept a subordinate role in the coming 80 RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES operations. He may well have sought a subordinate role, for he had an eye to the future. Nivelle's plans, although deftly presented and initially glittering, tarnished under scrutiny. As French and British staff officers digested the scheme, obvious questions arose. What was the strategic objective? Victory is always the ultimate objective, but some finite measure of initial success was needed. Why attack against the most formidable of the enemy's defense systems? The naturally strong chalk bluffs of the Chemin des Dames were made stronger by elaborate trenches, forests of wire, and countless machine guns. Nivelle explained that crushing the finest enemy positions would ruin German moraIe.12 The dapper general's best argument for his plan was that it had an obvious local purpose-to pinch off the huge Noyon salient which bulged between Arras and Soissons. British troops driving in from Arras to meet French troops coming up from Soissons would cut off thousands of Germans and eliminate a major part of the enemy's strongest front line. But the possibility of an Allied drive on the salient had long distrubed the German high command. In February, 1917, German leaders took a bold step and began evacuating the salient. Eventually enemy troops yieIded almost twenty miles of French soil in a retreat famed for unprecedented destruction. Short of sowing salt in the earth, the Germans did everything possible to devastate the French country~ide.'~ Once the Germans gave up the salient, Nivelle's offensive lost even local justification. But Nivelle rationalized grandly. German withdrawal helped him, he said, by contracting the front to be attacked and so permitting further concentration of French troops." A kind of hysterical certainty possessed Nivelle-nothing could swerve him from his battle.
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